(Durban) Pretoria authorities announced on Monday the arrest of two individuals in connection with one of the two shootings that mourned South Africa over the weekend.
Posted at 3:53 p.m.
A total of 19 people died after unknown assailants opened fire in the night from Saturday to Sunday, apparently at random on the customers of two bars, one in Soweto, in the suburbs of Johannesburg (15 dead), the other in Pietermaritzburg, in Zulu country, in the East (4 dead).
In a press release announcing without further details the two arrests, the Ministry of the Interior indicates that it is a “first step in order to hold accountable all those who organized the weekend the most murderer of the country”.
A spokeswoman for the ministry, Lirandzu Themba, told AFP that, for the police, the two people arrested are “linked” to the Pietermaritzburg massacre, perpetrated, according to testimony, by two men.
The Soweto shooting was allegedly committed by “several shooters” armed with AK-47 assault rifles, according to the first elements of the investigation.
Shootings are common in South Africa, one of the most violent countries in the world, fueled by gang violence and alcohol, but the indiscriminate nature of the two weekend killings baffles investigators.
These violent deaths are “unacceptable and disturbing” and “we cannot allow violent criminals to terrorize us in this way,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement on Sunday.